“Two years ago I talked about how we should be tagging our benefits to immunisation – so if you’re on the benefit and you have a child who isn’t immunised, there should be a financial consequence for that…I believe that’s the way we should go forward.”

Lance O’Sullivan took the opportunity to promote his coercive vaccination policy after jumping onto the stage during the middle of the Kaitaia screening of the documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe. During his interruption of the screening, to which he had been invited to attend, he made a speech in which, according to a TVNZ report, he told the screening organisers: “Your presence here will cause babies to die”.

In the interview, Dr. O’Sullivan admitted that he had not bothered to watch Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe.

The documentary is based on information supplied by a US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) scientist (Dr. William Thompson) who provided evidence that showed the agency had covered up a link between early age MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination and increased risk of autism. The film was produced by Del Bigtree, producer of the popular medical talk show “The Doctors” and Polly and Jon Tommey, whose son Billy suffered a severe seizure after MMR vaccination and subsequently became autistic.

Responding to Dr. Lance O’Sullivan’s comments, Katherine Smith, spokeswoman for No Forced Vaccines stated that it was “very disappointing” that Dr. O’Sullivan was again promoting the idea that children’s vaccinations should be linked to parental benefits.

“As a doctor he needs to keep in the forefront of his mind that his patients (or in the case of children, their parents) need to be able to make free and informed treatments about any medical procedure, including vaccinations.

“Any policy that ties vaccination to any sort of government benefit is obviously unethical because it uses the threat of financial hardship to try to influence the parents’ decisions about their children’s vaccinations.

“I would question Lance O’Sullivan’s commitment to the ethics of his profession, given his continued advocacy of a coercive vaccination policy.”

Smith also stated that data from NZ showed that while children living in impoverished communities were more likely to die from some illnesses, such as pneumonia, than those from wealthier families, vaccination rates were very similar in both the wealthiest and most impoverished families. [2] “Under the circumstances, it appears that poverty is a much more important factor in children’s vulnerabiIity to severe infections than whether or not a child is vaccinated”, Smith said, adding that “Any government policy that makes families poorer is likely to make children sicker.”

Smith noted that there are simple, low cost treatment strategies that are not routinely used in New Zealand that could prevent much illness and save lives, regardless of the income level of a child’s family. These include “supplemental vitamin C which was shown many decades ago to be able to prevent rheumatic fever”. [3]

“Providing supplemental vitamin D to babies, children and pregnant women over the autumn and winter months when sunshine levels are not sufficient to maintain good vitamin D status also provides a way to support the immune system in producing the antimicrobial peptides [4] needed to help the body resist infection”, Smith said.

For infants and children who do develop severe infections, “intravenous vitamin C could be used to treat viral pneumonia,” Smith added, citing the case of NZ farmer Allan Smith who survived an “expected-to-be-fatal double pneumonia” after high dose intravenous vitamin C was added to his treatment programme. [5]

Intravenous vitamin C had also been shown to significantly reduce the death rate in patients with sepsis [6], she added.